"No!"
A desperate cry tore from Hyeol-u before he even knew it.
Black and white.
A twin-headed serpent with two heads of different colors shot up in a flash of sunlight and lunged at the Golden Oriole just as it left its nest.
'That's...... a Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Serpent?'
And there was no time to think.
FLUTTER.
The serpent's jaws closed on the Golden Oriole's tail, but the feathers slipped free like silk—
SCREEEEE—!
The Golden Oriole shrieked in alarm and rocketed skyward.
It had barely escaped having its body seized.
Meanwhile, the Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Serpent, a golden feather dangling from its jaws, alighted on the nest.
HISSSS—
Lidless, grotesquely formed eyes bulging wide.
One head flicked its crimson tongue, savoring the taste — then turned toward the interior of the nest.
GULP.
The sound was so close it seemed to come from right beside their ears, and goosebumps erupted across every person present.
"W-wait — the Golden Oriole's egg! There's an egg in the nest!"
One head kept watch on the Golden Oriole hovering high above.
The other, hearing the sound of their voices, began to flick its tongue in their direction.
"No!"
Hyeol-u shouted like thunder and hurled the dark cane with everything he had.
FWAAASH!
The cane cleaved through the heavy, stagnant air.
Time seemed to slow.
The dark cane left Hyeol-u's hand and traced a diagonal arc toward the Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Serpent.
One of the creature's heads swiveled toward him.
The other's fangs were just closing on the golden egg, when—
SLICE—
A sound like a blade parting a blade of grass.
Both heads of the twin-headed serpent flew into the air, spraying crimson blood.
"KYAAAK!"
A ghastly light flared in the serpent's eyes, then faded.
'It must have waited a long time too. It has every right to feel cheated.'
As Hyeol-u gazed into the serpent's dying eyes—
"The egg — it's falling......!"
TAP!
So-i's shout and Hyeol-u's reaction came as one.
Had there ever been a moment in his past life when he had flung himself with this much desperation?
CATCH!
His body and hands spun midair, seizing the falling egg — and plunged straight into the pond.
SPLASH!
Hyeol-u sank deep before shooting back to the surface.
"PUHAAAH!"
He thrust the hand gripping the egg high above his head.
The twin-headed serpent's razor-sharp fangs had nearly punctured the eggshell.
"He did it!"
"Yes, yes, he got it!"
So-i and Yang Gye-dong, who had been watching the egg with bated breath and mouths watering, threw their arms around each other and spun in circles the moment they saw Hyeol-u's hand.
A moment later, both froze, inspected each other with bewildered eyes, and hastily sprang apart.
Regardless, Hyeol-u climbed out of the pond and tucked the egg — roughly the size of a chicken egg — into the folds of his robe for the time being.
Just then.
His eyes flashed at the sight of the Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Serpent's body floating on the surface of the pond.
'A divine creature's inner elixir!'
He had eaten them on occasion in his days as Hell Reaper.
Each time, the elixir would dissolve on his tongue and release a maddeningly sweet aroma.
SIZZLE—
He drew the cane in a straight line, slitting open the serpent's belly.
Beneath a liver as red as a ripe cherry dangled a crimson fruit.
Before this prize, there was no room for decorum.
An inner elixir deprived of nourishment from its dead host would turn to mush in moments.
'After the metal qi from the red iron ore and the fire qi from the sun — now poison qi as well......'
If things went well, he could become impervious to all poisons.
But he would have to brace himself for the excruciating agony that would follow the moment it entered his mouth.
Hyeol-u squeezed his eyes shut, popped the inner elixir into his mouth, and swallowed.
But then.
"Urgh, what is this......?"
The inner elixir had gone down his throat, but instead of dissolving and being absorbed, it had retained its shape and affixed itself just below his qi center.
Without even needing to look inward, the elixir had already hardened to the density of a walnut.
'It's rock-hard. When am I ever going to dissolve all of this......?'
The joy of having consumed the inner elixir was short-lived — a sigh escaped him almost immediately.
But then the ground seemed to shudder beneath his feet.
"Could the inner elixir's effects already be......?"
"Young Master! The ground is caving in!"
The sensation of heaven and earth collapsing made his heart plummet — but it was not the inner elixir.
The ground was genuinely giving way.
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-CRASH!
The earth heaved violently as though the whole world might crumble — and then, in the space of a breath—
A savage torrent came surging from the pond like a tidal wave.
"Good lord......!"
"Y-Young Master......!"
Hyeol-u's mind went blank for a moment.
But the sight of the other two — too paralyzed to flee, trembling in place — tore at him.
Biting down hard on his lip, he flung both arms wide.
"Both of you, grab onto my arms!"
Now it was do or die.
Using the crashing wave as a springboard, they rode the momentum and leaped headlong into the tunnel.
"AAAAAHHHH!"
WHOOOOSH—!
Hurled this way and that through pitch darkness.
How much time passed?
The moment he felt how strangely light the two bodies clinging to his arms had become—
Hyeol-u was standing in the full blast of the scalding waterfall.
"Cough, cough! Ow, hot! So-i...... So-i!"
"Gahk, Young Master!"
Hyeol-u, So-i, and Gye-dong all lay sprawled near the waterfall, utterly spent.
Every last drop of strength had been wrung from their bodies — they could not so much as twitch a finger.
But the mind refused to let the body rest, and forced it upright.
"We have to go...... we need to move now......"
He dragged So-i and Yang Gye-dong to their feet and began walking — to where, he did not know.
'Am I dreaming?'
They staggered like ghosts, moving wherever their feet carried them.
***
"Third Young Master......!"
"......"
"Third Young Master!"
"Wh-what?"
Hyeol-u bolted upright at the voice calling his name.
"You're awake!"
"Wh...... what happened?"
He looked around. So-i and Yang Gye-dong were curled up like cocoons, snoring thunderously.
And in the corridor at his feet, Geum Dae-gi knelt with bandages wound thick around his body.
"Geum Dae-gi? Where are we......?"
"Sir? This is the dormitory."
Hyeol-u shook his head and tried to think, but he had no idea how they had made it from the cave back to the dormitory.
Had they stumbled here in a daze, like sleepwalkers?
"W-wait...... my egg!"
"Egg......?"
Hyeol-u snatched up the folded clothes nearby and fumbled through them frantically.
"Whew, it's fine. The shell is hard as stone. It's cracked, but intact."
"Pardon......?"
A deep, rumbling voice spoke next.
It was Namgung Ga-ri.
"Namgung Ga-ri? Why are you here?"
"W-well......"
From the way he could not bring himself to explain, the situation had clearly been too much for any of them to handle alone, so birds of a feather had flocked together.
In any case, Geum Dae-gi had come to the dormitory when Hyeol-u failed to appear at the management office on the appointed day.
That meant a considerable amount of time had passed at Caishi Rock — though exactly how much, he could not say.
"The documents?"
"Yes, here."
Geum Dae-gi handed over a wrapping cloth.
An ordinary cloth around extraordinary contents.
These were the very items that had been strangling the Namgung Clan.
Hyeol-u untied the bundle, and inside lay a thick sheaf of documents.
He flipped through them methodically.
The purchase contract for Immortal's View Tower. Sales records for various ironwork and iron ore. Receipts for payment of sundry goods.
Continental Exchange deposit confirmations, employee morale dinner expense receipts, and more.
"Tsk, they certainly helped themselves......"
Clicking his tongue as he read, Hyeol-u's hand suddenly stopped.
A name had appeared — the buyer who had been purchasing real estate, shops, and taverns formerly owned by the Namgung Clan.
Hyeol-u shifted his gaze to Geum Dae-gi.
"Do you know someone named Wang Hyeon-jong?"
"Yes, sir. He's the guild master of the Huizhou Merchant Guild in Southern Zhili."
"Ha, they've been picking the bones clean. I'll need to meet this man."
"What?! You want to meet him......?"
A chill ran through Geum Dae-gi's body unbidden.
Wang Hyeon-jong.
The guild master of a massive merchant confederation wielding enormous influence across the Central Plains' commercial world.
The bodyguards who stood always at his side were first-rate martial artists.
Their numbers and the level of their martial arts were both said to be closely guarded secrets.
A den of demons, one might say.
"Why do they hide their true strength?"
"W-well, there are reportedly good reasons for that."
"Who says?"
"The Grand Steward......"
"The Grand Steward...... I see. Good work. You may go."
"Um, Th-Third Young Master!"
"What now?"
"The pressure points...... you said you would release them......"
"Ah! My apologies. I've been scatterbrained lately. Now, it'll take a few strikes, so just bear with it."
"Wh......?! W-wait!"
THWACK, THWACK, THWACK—!
"GAAAHHH......"
For a while, bitter, teeth-grinding screams drifted from the dormitory entrance.
"What kind of pressure point release involves this kind of brutality?! Ngh-hghhh......"
Geum Dae-gi and Namgung Ga-ri, both battered on already injured bodies, lay collapsed on the floor, tears streaming silently.
Hyeol-u scratched his head with a twinge of guilt.
"Let me apologize again. Did I not mention it beforehand? Simply undoing the points would be simpler, yes — but over time the body would stiffen and lock up. If I didn't do it this way, you'd turn into wooden puppets. I hope you understand."
"W-wooden puppets......?"
***
The steps of Hyeol-u's party were light as they shouldered their bundles and headed for Azure Cloud Temple.
So-i bounced along behind Hyeol-u.
Yang Gye-dong, too, walked with a lively stride.
'Sigh, he says he wants to repay me for saving his life — but I can't just send him away like this.'
Hyeol-u glanced back at Yang Gye-dong and tasted bitterness.
Keeping people under you.
It all cost money.
Feed them, clothe them, house them, listen to their complaints, cater to their moods.
At times like this, he missed the days of being Hell Reaper in his past life.
Back then, he had roamed the martial world free as the wind, a lone wolf with not a care in the world.
'That was true freedom.'
Hyeol-u felt a pang of nostalgia for those days.
But then.
When Hyeol-u and So-i reached the Yangtze River relay station where they had left their horses — the horses were gone.
"What? The Namgung Clan came and took them?"
Yang Gye-dong had volunteered to handle it and gone into the station, only to turn back with a stricken look, eyeing Hyeol-u and So-i in the distance.
'Oh, for...... the First Young Master wouldn't bother with something like this...... damn Grand Steward! The kind of man who has to micromanage every last detail of the household finances.'
Hyeol-u pulled out a small pouch and handed it to Yang Gye-dong.
"Buy three horses. There are bound to be unclaimed ones they're holding."
Thirty nyang of silver.
He was not entirely free of the feeling that he had taken a loss.
But if he wanted to ride out without begging the stablemaster for favors, each of them needed their own horse.
Brown, chestnut, and last of all a white mare.
No two the same color, making them easy to tell apart.
"Hm? Why four?"
Beside the three horses Yang Gye-dong led back, a black colt was nuzzling the white mare's side.
"You won't believe this, but this black colt is the white mare's foal. Since I bought the mother, I told them to throw in the baby too — and they handed it over without a peep."
Given how the atmosphere at Yang Gye-dong's relay station had grown increasingly tense, the boy must have resorted to intimidation.
Of course, when a subordinate delivered results like these, a good leader turned a blind eye.
Hyeol-u even clapped him on the shoulder in encouragement.
"Well done."
"Yes, sir! Thank you!"
"Then — onward!"
Unlike the hard gallop toward Ma'anshan the first time around, the ride home was a leisurely clip-clop.
Before long, the Namgung Clan came into view in the distance, and the feeling was something new.
A warmth in the heart, perhaps.
Not quite a triumphant homecoming, but from the vantage of a bastard son returning from good work done for the clan, the scenery was deeply welcome.
The same buildings, the same groves, the same landscape — unchanged — yet a person's heart could shift like the myriad turns of fate.
'That's what makes people so fickle......'
Just as that thought crossed his mind.
"Hm?"
Something genuinely had changed.
The gate guards' faces were unfamiliar.
"Um, Young Master. Those gate guards...... I've never seen them before."
So-i had noticed too, whispering under his breath.
It was unmistakably odd.
With the household already letting servants go left and right, had they actually hired new gate guards?
Where had the money come from?
The Grand Steward would not have cracked open his stashed funds for the clan's sake.
As Hyeol-u expanded his senses, his expression began to shift.
'This...... is truly strange.'
New gate guards were perhaps not remarkable in themselves.
But the aura he sensed near the main gate—
It was not the soft yet weighty presence unique to the Namgung Clan. It was something aggressive, foreign, and utterly unfamiliar.
"Could it be...... something has happened."
The instant Hyeol-u murmured those words.
One of the new gate guards approached with a drawn blade and shouted.
"Halt! Dismount!"
Just as he feared.
If it were Gang Chung, they would have passed through without a word — but this one's rigid hostility confirmed that Gang Chung was long gone.
When So-i startled and moved to dismount, Hyeol-u stopped him with a hand and stepped forward himself.